Local physician on the cutting edge of using robotics in knee replacements

Deborah Allard Herald News Staff Reporter @debsallard

Monday

Jul 11, 2016 at 11:39 AMJul 11, 2016 at 1:36 PM

SWANSEA — The last time Pat Boyer went on a cruise, she spent 10 of her 15 days in a wheelchair.

In Hawaii.

“I had so much pain,” Boyer said. “They couldn’t really do anything.”

It was a Baker’s cyst that caused her affliction — a fluid-filled cyst behind her right knee due to arthritis.

When she returned from vacation, Boyer, 72, of Westport, made an appointment with Dr. Joseph Lifrak, an orthopedic surgeon with Southcoast Physicians Group and the team orthopedic physician for the Providence Friars Hockey team.

Lifrak — a Fall River native, whose great-grandfather was a physician and father Thomas a retired N.B. Borden school principal — has been performing orthopedic surgery in Rhode Island for 15 years. He joined Southcoast in August of 2015.

“They reached out to me,” Lifrak said. “It’s been great.”

Lifrak performed a robotic assisted partial knee replacement on Boyer in February. She had the left knee operated on in May.

Lifrak was the first surgeon in Rhode Island (he still has hospital privileges at Roger Williams) to perform computer navigated knee surgery some years back.

He is a member and past president of the Rhode Island Orthopedic Society. His clinical interests are in sports medicine, knee reconstruction including full and partial replacements, ACL surgery, and knee arthroscopy.

Lifrak has probably performed about 3,000 total knee replacements in his career. He’s completed about 15 partial replacements using the Navio system.

The system “builds” a virtual knee identical to the one he’s to operate on. It positions where the partial knee will be placed and can even test how tight or loose the replacement is before the surgery is complete.

For a partial knee replacement, the surgeon makes a small incision and only replaces the damaged portion of the knee joint, sparing healthy bone and cartilage. After the surgery, the patient has less pain and a quicker recovery, plus a shorter hospital stay and a more “normal” feeling knee.

A partial knee replacement is intended for patients with knee pain who have osteoarthritis limited to one compartment of the knee, and who have failed non-surgical treatments.